Southland REALTORS March on Sacramento

Hon. Felipe Fuentes welcomes REALTORS® and promises to work closely with us on real estate issues.

REALTOR® members of SRAR marched on the State Capital, June 4, 2008, to promote private property rights and to protect and promote the business of real estate.

We had many successes this year including preventing 150 point of sale ordinances. This means that as a result REALTORS® have 150 less items to complete before they could close a transaction.

Right now we are fighting: AB 2678 (Nunez) Point-of-Sale Energy Audits – This bill requires that a state agency develop a program that would require ALL homes and commercial properties in California to have an energy audit at point-of-sale and that mandatory energy efficiency investments be made. While C.A.R. appreciates the goal of AB 2678, C.A.R. strongly opposes the point-of-sale requirements in AB 2678 because they fail to achieve the state’s green house gas reduction objectives while creating a mandate that will further weaken the housing market. If enacted, AB 2678 could add thousands of dollars to the cost of purchasing a home, including up to $400 just to have a home audited.

One of the hot issues for all California REALTORS®, this measure hurts affordability, 26,000 families are priced out of the market everytime you increase the sales price by $1,000. This measure could increase the sales price significantly. If energy efficiency is important to our legislators, then this measure at point of sale would take too long to gain the desired result. Only 22% of homes requiring the energy upgrade would have it by 2020 and we would have to wait until 2060 for the total number to be upgraded.